Critique Groups

A

Anna Crain

Anna Lipson

Kali Sturgis

Hanna Terry

B

Caitlin Colditz

Alana Guarino

Georgia Sheridan

Paige Torre

C

Brooke Carroll

Rhianna Israni

Madison Smith

Grant Tolson

D

Sam Hughes

Candace Von Hoffman

Lane Pernell

Dana Tokarzewski

E

Lauren Bellamy

Azad Patel

Aleiah Briggs

Jordan Williams

Assignment 7: Showing Motion

very fast shutter

moderately slow shutter (1/30th)

Pan shot (very slow shutter)

overall blur (very slow shutter)

In each of the examples above, how are the images affected by shutter speed? How can creative use of shutter and/or camera movement create different impressions of time and movement?

Use shutter priority. This is "Tv" with Canon, "S" with Nikon. This is an automatic mode where the camera chooses an f-stop based on the shutter speed that you specify, based on available light. 

ISO can also factor in to this exercise. Some guidelines: To freeze a fast moving subject, shoot with ISO 400 or 800 (depending on light available). For long exposures (drag shutter) and panning shots, shoot with the lowest number ISO available, and perhaps shaded light.

Create interesting examples of the following:

• Freeze a fast moving object with a fast shutter speed, 1/500 second or faster. Use higher ISO, if light conditions require.
• Create the impression of blurred moving object passing across a stationary background with a slower shutter speed (drag shutter). Try 1/30. Make sure camera is as stable as possible, using lens stabilization, if you have it. Use lower ISO, if light conditions require.
• Track a moving subject across a background, with 1/2 to 1 second exposure, creating a PAN shot. For this shot, use a very low ISO, high f-stop, and shoot in deep shade. Use lowest ISO possible.

Suggestions: For all of the above...have all motion occur across the frame rather than coming directly toward or way from the camera. Also, get in close to the subject so that the sense of motion fills the frame.

How creative can you be with these examples? Originality will be rewarded!

Project 2: Sequence or Series

Reading: Chapter 7
Prelim critique: 2/28
Final Critique, all work due:  3/7

Background
Cartier Bresson...example of  "The Decisive Moment"

As photographers, the frame is perhaps our most important tool. With the camera, we frame our subjects, including what we feel is important for the picture, and excluding what isn't. Essentially, we are editing from the visual world with our frame. A common goal in photography is to try and get it all in one frame—to create a singular image that conveys our full expression, sharp, clear, with a single point of view.

Further, we capture single points in time,  often orphaned from the longer story. They float, untethered without revealing what came before or after, or for that matter, what else was going on at that time.

There's value in all this—but it can also be limiting!

How can we extend the story of a photograph? What happened before our  decisive moment? What happened after? What did the other person see? What about the fly on the wall? Sometimes we need multiple images, multiple frames to convey the breadth and richness of our visual story.

For this project, explore one of the following, based on your interest:

1. Narrative Sequence
2. Conceptual Series

1. Narrative Sequence

How can photography be used to create a narrative sequence, to convey a story through time? Think about change and movement...what changes? What moves? What stays the same? How does this change tell a story?

Grandpa Goes to Heaven

Duane Michals (and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDY4d-HqWKk) used extended sequences of images to convey complex and (often amusing) narratives. Some of these visual story lines went in a straight lines, sometimes they made bizarre circles and spirals.

Chance Meeting, Duane Michals

Countless photographers have borrowed his approach to make narratives of their own.

E.Sariozkan

elodie fougère

The Personal Telling of StoryJennifer Shaw

New Orleans photographer Jennifer Shaw illustrates the trials her family faced during and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The images are told through the use of toys and figurines.
http://jennifershaw.net/hurricane-story/


Metaphoric narrative

The photographer Masaru Goto created a compelling narrative documenting the difficult subject of his mother's sickness, decline and eventual death. He draws a comparison between the life-cycle of cherry trees passing through the four seasons from the blossom stage through the shedding of leaves as extended metaphor for the phases of a human life, from full glory to eventual decline. The result is sad, but poetic and contemplative.

Narrative ideas to get started:

• Create a character and story...depict this visually, telling the story through a sequence of images. Shoot in a way that links the images together in a coherent way.

• Choose or stage a sequence of actions and consequences that are related...show us the before, during and after in a compelling way. Even better, throw in a twist or surprise.

• Illustrate a recent (or current) news event using a fictional or illustrative approach. Instead of photographing the actual events, recreate the event in a compelling or believable way through a sequence of images

• Take a photo every hour for a day...document what you are doing or seeing. Or what someone else is seeing or doing. What stays the same in every photo? What changes?

• Same place different time...photograph the same place, the same way, but at a different time...vary by minute, hour, day, week...decide one method and keep it constant

• Same person different time...photograph the same person, the same way, but at a different time...vary by minute, hour, day, week...decide one method and keep it constant.

2. Thematic Conceptual Series

Jeffrey Milstein creates a typology of aircraft.

Bernd and Hilla Becher are particularly associated with this mode of art (conceptual typology)

Jeff Brouws  Artists like these are concerned with cataloging and "collecting" with their camera. For instance, Brouws isn't interested in singular train cars, but the almost endless variations between numerous cars. Working with a mode called typology, he creates grids that simultaneously show similarity and contrast.

Idis Khan quite literally quotes Bernd and Hilla Becher's work with industrial architecture, but layers the multiple variations of structures within a single frame instead of a grid.

On more of a documentary, story-telling mode, Lucia Ganieva, creates rich biographical portraits of people relating their persona to their vocation, past, workplace, etc. using diptychs and triptychs. Notice how the frames work together to build meaning.


There is a long history in photography of objectification based on race, gender, stereotypes and notions of the "other". African Americans have been notably objectified in this way, unfortunately. Photographer Myra Greene turns the tables on this history with her clever and effective series: "My White Friends".

Andrew Moore captures how time and economic forces, seemingly beyond our control, can change a city. He depicts decaying structures related to the auto industry in Detroit, to tell a sad story of a city that was once a vibrant and thriving place. Each photograph carries an echo of the past, and is operates very tightly around the central idea. While each image is strong, the work should be considered the whole series, rather than the individual photos.

Denis Darzacq creates images of individuals in ordinary settings that appear to defy gravity. The project gains strength through repetition and variation within this theme.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HonzF8LbLE

Project Description

Choose one:

• Narrative Sequence
• Conceptual Series

Content and concept are important. Think it through.

• Output methods... what you will physically make?
• Letter size physical prints to comprise a sequence or series.
• How much to do? If you are doing a sequence or series, aim for 5-7 printed images. It may depend on your project—discuss with instructor. 
• Keep in mind that this is a multiple week project, so an ambitious level of shooting is expected, to contribute to a strong, final selection of images
• All of your individual photos that go into this project should be edited appropriately in photoshop. This includes the skills covered so far in class: WP/BP, global tone adjustments (brightness and contrast using curves and/or camera raw), color adjustments, local adjustments (dodge and burn, blending mode curves with masks), sharpening. All Raw conversions must be smart objects.
• Jpeg versions: jpeg, quality 10+, sRGB, no longer than 1500 pixels in one direction (use image processor to set this up)

Reading: Chapter 7
Prelim critique: 2/28
Final Critique, all work due:  3/7

Reading

By Monday, 2/19: Chapters 3 and 4

Assignment 6: Point of view

Point of view is an important narrative device to orient the viewer toward the subject, or activity, depicted in the photograph. It places the viewer in the "scene" with varying degrees of distance, participation or complicity implied. 

The term "point-of-view" comes directly from literary theory, when it is used to describe the relationship between the narrator and the story line. For instance, when the narrator uses the words "I" and "we," they are usually recounting a story in which they were a participant. "I was reading my phone." This is called first-person. 

When they use "he", "she" or "it," they are using a third-person orientation, describing the story from a once-removed perspective. "She was reading her phone." Usually with third person, the information revealed in the story is still limited to what would reasonably be known by someone passing by.

In some cases, much more information is revealed. For example: "While the woman in a pink coat was reading her phone outside the Ferguson Center, a barista in Starbucks knocked over a pitcher of frothed milk. This might be called an omniscient point-of-view, where information is revealed from an privileged all-knowing (or "God's eye") perspective.

Point of view can be explored though many means:

• Distance to subject
• Angle to subject
• Focal length (wide versus zoom)
• Selective focus
• Depth-of-field
• Composition
• Eye contact
• Empathic perspectives (for example, place camera next to subject's head, pointing out, so we witness what the subject sees)

The important question to ask...through who's eyes are we seeing? The subject's? Another participant? A stranger walking by? An all-seeing, all-knowing narrator?

What are the points of view depicted in the examples below? How might this affect the "story" or implied narrative of the photographs?

Due: 2/21

Stage three different scenarios, with a single subject.

• 10-15 images per scenario
• Explore a wide range of view points within these images. Be deliberate... for each image, what point-of-view is being used? Try first, third and omniscient perspectives... see what you discover. 
• Bring files to class. 

Group Critique, Preliminary, Project 1

For critique today we will be working in groups. Group A will critique the individual members of Group B. Group B will critique the individual members of Group C, and so on. Group E will critique Group A members.

The critique group will write responses on a critique sheet for each artist they review. This critique sheet will be given to the artist after the critique, so please write legibly. 

Groups:

A Lauren Bellamy

Alana Guarino

Azad Patel

Hanna Terry Georgia Sheridan

B Aleiah Briggs

Sam Hughes

Lane Pernell

Dana Tokarzewski

C Brooke Carroll

Rhianna Israni

Grant Tolson Jordan Williams

D Caitlin Colditz

Emma Junck

Madison Smith

Paige Torre

E Anna Crain

Anna Lipson

Kali Sturgis

Candace Von Hoffman

Assignment 5: Depth of Field

Deep depth of field. Achieve with small aperture and/or wider angle lens.

Shallow depth of field. Achieve with wide aperture and/or longer (telephoto) lens.

Lens with adjustable aperture 

Typical range f-stops

In class:

Explore depth-of-field using Aperture Priority Mode. 

Nikon: use "A" mode

Canon: use "Av" mode
Other brands: ask instructor

The photographer chooses the aperture and the camera automatically adjusts shutter speed for optimal exposure.

Shoot in fairly bright conditions to ensure adequate exposure, or use higher ISO.

• Find a situation where there is a distinct foreground object and the background is far away.
• Set camera to manual focus.   Focus on the foreground object for all variations. 
• Use a medium-to-long focal length setting. Avoid wide angle. Instead zoom in and step back. 
• Shoot the image three times, varying the apertures. Create at least 3 3-image sets.

1. f4 or wider (f2.8, f1.4 okay)
2. f8
3. f16 or smaller (f22 okay)

Out of Class Shooting (for Monday 2/12) Bring files to class to review and/or share

Choose specific subjects and shoot them with varied depths of field, while maintaining the same composition/framing. Also maintain the same focus on the subject. This means 2-3 variations of the same "shot" but created with a range of apertures to vary the depth of field. Again, shoot on aperture priority.

In the examples below, we see the same subject, focus and framing, but with different depths of field. How does this affect the image? Which do you prefer? Why?

f4.0

f18